Security law tries to quell opposition
HONG KONG — China officially ratified a plan Thursday to write a national security law for Hong Kong that exerts Beijing’s broader, new control over the semiautonomous territory in a bid to prevent a return of the months of oftenviolent protests last year.
The Beijingbacked Hong Kong government sought to assure its citizens that the law would not infringe on their freedoms, while the prodemocracy opposition described the move as the end of the core values that set the former British colony apart from the rest of China.
“From now on, Hong Kong is nothing but just another mainland Chinese city,” prodemocracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said.
China’s ceremonial legislature, ending a oneweek annual session curtailed because of the coronavirus, approved a decision by the ruling Communist Party to impose national security laws on Hong Kong.
The body’s standing committee, a smaller group with decisionmaking power, is charged with developing the specific laws against secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in Hong Kong’s affairs. No timetable has been announced, but they could be enacted at one of its next meetings in June and August.
The move marks a definitive end to China’s more lowkey approach to Hong Kong over the largescale protests last year, said Cornell University China expert Allen Carlson.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified Congress that the Trump administration no longer regards Hong Kong as autonomous from mainland China, setting the stage for the possible withdrawal of preferential trade and financial treatment that the U.S. gives to the former British colony.
At a news conference, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong applauded Pompeo’s announcement.
Sanctions or the freezing of Hong Kong’s special economic status would “let Beijing know it is a must to completely withdraw and stop the implementation of the national security law,” said Wong, who rose to prominence as a student leader during prodemocracy demonstrations in 2014.